The End in All Beginnings

by John F. D. Taff

  I took a nervous faltering step farther into the carnage, then another.

  Pushing aside a broken kitchen chair, I stepped from the slick vinyl kitchen floor onto the carpet of the family room. I moved through the riot of furniture, stepping carefully to avoid as much red as possible.

  That’s when I saw them.

  Charlie’s parents.

  At least that’s who I thought they must be.

  Their peaceful appearance amidst the carnage—laid stretched out side-by-side, holding bloodied hands—belied the intensity of the violence done to them.

  I could make out which was Charlie’s mom only by a lock or two of her hair that wasn’t matted with blood and gore. Otherwise, there wasn’t enough left of her or her clothes to be sure. Her face wasn’t just covered in blood, it was gone, removed.

  Across the very top of her scalp, I could see deep rents, three parallel lines that cut down to her skull, and had peeled back to expose the shocking white of bone beneath.

  Her eyes were gone…just…gone. Her throat had also been slit, and the wound was ragged and gaping.

  I looked over to what I assumed was Charlie’s father. He was never around much, which made it hard for me to recognize him. He was mutilated, too, but his wounds didn’t look as angry.

  After a minute, I realized two things.

  First, I had wet myself. I felt a large, growing area of warmth that spilled across my crotch, down the legs of my jeans.

  Second, they had not died there like that.

  Someone had laid them out there, together.

  Someone.

  Perhaps still in the house.

  My heart lurched, and a low, quivering moan escaped my lips.

  I stepped backward, keeping my eyes on the pair of dead bodies.

  “Brian,” came a voice from behind me.

  It was Charlie’s voice, that I knew.

  I also knew, before I turned, that he wasn’t Charlie, not anymore.

  Something in the voice. There was a flat, thin tone, a coldness.

  And—the thing that really frightened me—a hissing quality to it.

  I turned slowly to face him.

  If there had been anything left in my bladder, I’m sure it would have gushed out at that moment.

  “What happened to me?” he asked, pleaded.

  He was Charlie.

  And he was a monster.

  Somehow, I could tell it was Charlie, though what stood before me was more lizard now than boy. He was still about Charlie’s size, standing upright, his clothing hanging in shreds and tatters. His clothes, like the room around us, were stained with blood.

  But his skin was no longer pale, pallid. It was now brown and tan and a coppery orange that deepened into a dark red around his head and face. His skin was rough, scaly, covered with bumps and furrows.

  His bare chest was thicker, more muscled, longer even. His legs had shortened and thickened, too, and his arms were powerful looking. The hands that he held out to me were spatulate, ended in fingers that were long, tapered and wickedly clawed.

  A tail, plump and sinuous, fell from his backside, curled at his feet.

  Only his eyes looked the same, those same grey, determined eyes now peering from a face that was pushed out into a kind of blunt snout.

  “Charlie?”

  “Brian…what…what happened to me?”

  I could see his tongue when he talked, peeking through the flat slit of his wide mouth. It was a moist, pink wedge.

  Oh my God, what have I done?

  “Charlie…your parents…”

  He flicked his head first left, then right, his eyes darting quickly around the room.

  “Had to…had to kill them. They screamed…oh, God, Brian, they screamed so much. I couldn’t take it…couldn’t. But now they don’t have to know, don’t have to see me.”

  My heart, already chilled at this point, froze over like a pond in winter.

  “Charlie…you killed them? Your parents? You…”

  His eyes flicked back to me at an astonishing speed, his head cocking like a confused dog. “Had to, didn’t I just say that? Had to.”

  He regarded me coolly, looked me up and down, stopping at the stain on my jeans.

  “Milk, milk, lemonade,” he said, and he uttered a series of short, raspy barks that I realized was laughter. “You smell like piss, man.”

  He leaned forward, and it took every ounce of effort on my part not to flinch.

  “And fear.”

  His flattened nostrils, shaded a deep, deep indigo, flared, and he snorted.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Charlie, I’m sorry, so sorry.”

  His eyes, which were even then starting to darken, as if black ink were rolling into them, stopped their crazy flitting and focused on mine.

  “For what, Brian?”

  It was in the tone of his voice.

  He knew.

  I swallowed, trying to get my mouth wet enough to make words.

  “It was me…I did this to you. I just wanted to give you the perfect life.”

  He chittered his strange laugh at me, leaned in again.

  I smelled it on him, that smell I sensed upon entering the house.

  It was a musk, something oily and densely reptilian. Unpleasant.

  “I know,” he hissed, and now it was a hiss. His pink tongue darted out, seemed to be smelling me as I was smelling him. “Killed it. Gave its life to me.”

  “I’m sorry, Charlie,” I moaned. “I just wanted to help you. I didn’t want you to…”

  “Die?”

  I nodded.

  “I guess I should thank you then,” he said, slurring the words, mostly whispering them now.

  His eyes had gone fully dark.

  “It’s not perfect, Brian,” he murmured. “But it’s gotta be better than dead.”

  He turned quickly, took a step toward the staircase in the foyer.

  Before I could react, he spun around, crouched low, came at me.

  “Remember me, Brian.”

  With that, he slashed at me, then dropped to all fours and scurried out of the room and up the staircase.

  I stood there for a moment, then felt a line of fire across my chest. Looking down, I saw that my shirt was torn open in three lines. Blood pulsed from the wounds, soaked the shirt.

  I took two or three lurching steps into the hallway, feeling the house close in around me. My chest burned, my head swirled and I felt nauseated enough to vomit.

  Slumping against the bloody handprint I had tried so hard to avoid earlier, I saw Charlie’s bright, coppery form slither down the stairs, stand silhouetted in the open doorway.

  He clutched a big canvas pack in his clawed hands. The pack was heavy, stuffed with whatever he’d gone upstairs to retrieve.

  “Almost. Perfect. Now,” he said with great difficulty.

  And with that, he crouched down, darted through the front door.

  I tried to get up then, to follow him at least to the door, to see which direction he went.

  But I knew. I knew.

  My eyes fell to the foyer floor, where several items had spilled from the pack as he left.

  Comic books.

  One was an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man.

  On its cover, the webslinger fought with the white-lab-coat-wearing Lizard.

  I fainted with a trembling smile on my face.

  * * *

  And that’s where my mother found me.

  Amazingly, she was sober.

  More amazingly, she was sober for the rest of her life.

  There were police, lots of police, lots of questions, but I couldn’t answer many of them. I’d come over to see Charlie, found the door open, saw the carnage, was attacked.

  No, I didn’t know who it was.

  No, I didn’t know why I’d been attacked, left.

  No, I had no idea what happened to Charlie.

  But I knew. I knew.

  Things got fuzzier, though, the farther away I got. With
in a few hours, I was doubting what I’d seen, what I’d done.

  Maybe the police were right. Maybe there had been a psychopath that had broken into the house, killed Charlie’s parents, kidnapped him. Maybe I had stumbled onto the scene as the killer was leaving, and he’d attacked me, too.

  There was a funeral several days later. My mom and even my dad attended with me. They held hands and paid a great deal of attention to me. But it was temporary. My dad drifted away again afterward. But my mom never went back to drinking.

  I think about that ceremony now, and, like I said, it’s fuzzy.

  Were there two caskets at the front of the church?

  Or were there three?

  My mind, I think to protect itself from the impossibility of what had really happened, tells me there were three…had to be three.

  But I think there were two.

  Only two.

  I look down often at the claw marks raked across my chest, my heart…at the scars they’ve become. I touch them lightly, the raised, gnarled skin there, and I remember.

  As if I could forget.

  * * *

  EPILOGUE

  For years, there were psychiatrists, medications, nightmares.

  Eventually, I rose above them all.

  Hah, sure!

  Now I’m a day trader in New York City, and I believe in nothing.

  Well, that’s not precisely true. I believe in two things. Money and numbers.

  Money’s all that matters.

  And numbers don’t demand sacrifices in order to work.

  About five years ago—twelve years after all this happened—I went back to my hometown, back to the subdivision. I hadn’t been there since I’d left for college. My mother had moved away long ago.

  I parked my car in front of my old house—how small it looked now, peaceful. A new family lived in Charlie’s old house. Children played on the lawn, their mother waved to me absently from a chair on the front porch.

  I wondered if she knew. But she had to, it was in all the newspapers, the television reports.

  I was appalled that a few coats of paint and some new carpeting could erase what had happened there.

  I waved back, hefted the heavy bag I carried, and walked away down the street.

  The path was as familiar to me as if I were still eleven years old.

  Back to the woods.

  I stood in the clearing at its entrance, still so much like theater curtains. I lingered there for uncounted minutes, nervous as an actor with stage fright. Eventually, sighing heavily, I pushed through these curtains, took the stage.

  It was a cool, late spring day. There was a threat of rain, and clouds bunched together, pushed atop each other in the sky. The air smelled of ozone and dark, green leafy things.

  I walked the path, still worn, down to the little hill where the fallen tree had been, relieved that it was still there.

  Where else would I look?

  I clambered down the hill, caught myself on the tree trunk, still somehow solid after all these years. To either side, the undergrowth was thick, lush. A few trillium here and there, their white flowers like polka dots against the verdant green.

  They made me think of that day so long ago now, in these woods with Charlie.

  I wasn’t sure he’d actually still be here, but where else would he go?

  “Charlie,” I said, my voice cracking. “It’s me, Brian. Sorry it’s taken so long. But I brought you something.”

  I lifted the heavy bag, set it down onto the log.

  I waited a few minutes, my ears straining to hear something, anything.

  But there was just the chirping of the birds, a distant lawnmower, the gentle whisper of the wind.

  I brushed a few tears from my eyes, absently touched the scar on my chest through my shirt.

  Turning away, I set off up the hill.

  When I heard it.

  A slither of plastic. A patter of things falling, hitting the ground.

  I spun, took a step back toward the log.

  The bag I’d brought, filled with an entire year’s worth of Marvel comics—and a few DCs thrown in just to piss him off—had drooped over the far edge of the trunk, spilling some of the comics into the deep weeds.

  I peered into that darkness, past the spray of fallen comics.

  I thought I saw two eyes there, glittering from the darkness.

  The curl of a boy-sized body, glittering like pennies in the afternoon sun, the sinuous sweep of a tail curled silently in the brush.

  I thought I saw something in those eyes.

  Recognition, perhaps.

  Thanks. Perhaps.

  I left the bag of comics, backed away up the hill, returned to my car.

  I’ve been back every year since with another bag.

  * * *

  My dreams these days are mostly of numbers, spreadsheets, margins, calls. Dollar signs.

  Mostly.

  But every so often, perhaps three or four times a year, I dream of him, of Charlie. He is no longer the boy I knew, and that’s okay. Even in my memories, my dreams, I have no right to hold him there, like he was.

  I dream of Charlie as he is now, curled beneath a fallen tree in the woods of our youth. He is beautiful, vibrant with color and life.

  In these dreams, he sometimes suns himself on the top of the log, sparkling reds and oranges and shiny coppers. His eyes are closed, drowsy.

  I see him curled beneath the log, atop a pile of soggy, faded comic books, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, The Fantastic Four. Maybe even a Superman or two.

  It is the perfect life.

  And these are the good dreams.

  PART ONE

  He was there again today, standing in the corner, arms limp.

  He wore nothing, but didn’t conceal his nudity. I got so little company those days that his presence could actually be comforting if it weren’t for the total lack of features on his face.

  I don’t just mean that his features were indistinct or forgettable. I mean he had none. No eyes, ears, nose, mouth. His head was a smooth, shining white ball atop a lanky body. He gave me the impression of a living bedpost.

  In fact, the only recognizable thing on his entire body was his erect penis, jutting into space.

  Like its owner, it had very little detail. No veins, no pores, no dark band to mark where he’d been circumcised. Only the small hole at its tip was visible. I half suspected that, were I to stand and examine the top of his head, I’d find a similar dark hole.

  But, of course, I couldn’t. Violent ones like me were strapped into a jacket and leashed to the padded wall. No sudden movements to alarm the staff. I mean, Christ! I’d already killed three or four people.

  I forgot.

  God help me. That’s the problem.

  I had a mantra of names that I recited hour after hour, day after blurry, drug-fogged, endless, run-together day. Everyone I knew or had known, being very careful to leave out the ones I knew were dead.

  I shuddered to think what might happen if I were to remember them.

  The ones I forgot were the problem. I tried so hard to remember, but sometimes the drugs and the electroshock therapy—Yes, Virginia, there is a Sears DieHard!—made me forget.

  And that scared me.

  What happens if I forgot myself?

  It’s like the light bulb in the icebox. Is it really off when you close the door? Or is it on all the time?

  An interesting question.

  And I couldn’t tell if I was the icebox or just another light bulb.

  * * *

  “And how are you today, Mr. Stadler?” Dr. Benton asked keeping his distance.

  “Fine,” I answered in a noncommittal tone. He’d already forgotten about me and moved straight to the words and numbers on the chart he held tightly.

  “Any side effects from the electro-convulsive therapy?” he asked, almost not expecting or wanting an answer.

  “No more than usual,” I answered, moving slightly, enou
gh to cause the metal clasp on the leash to jingle against the jacket straps.

  He looked up, trying not to appear to have done so too quickly.

  “You don’t like talking to me, do you?”

  “Don’t like you, Mr. Stadler?” he asked. “Why would you say that?”

  “No, you don’t know me enough to dislike me. You just don’t like to talk with me.”

  He considered this, plainly uncomfortable. “Well, it could be the fact that you’ve assaulted six staff members in two years. Maybe I don’t want to be the seventh.” He smiled, tight and grim. “If you have any trouble, I’ll be back again in three hours. We can discuss it then. And we can move you into your own room tomorrow…if you’ll cooperate.”

  He turned and rapped sharply on the little Plexiglas window high up in the padded door.

  “Wait!” I pleaded as the door drew open and light from the corridor—outdoor light, sunlight—crept into my room.

  “I didn’t mean to. I try so hard…to remember. But, they’re falling away like leaves. I’m afraid of the shock treatments. Afraid they’ll make…afraid I’ll forget me.”

  This held him in the doorway for a second. But he turned and left, the door closing behind him, and I heard the sound of the bolt slide into place.

  I began the mantra immediately.

  After the first run through, I thought for a moment, then added my own name.

  * * *

  “Where do you go when you’re not with me?”

  I raised my head as much as possible from the thinly padded table. “I mean where do you go? What do you do?”

  “I go home. I see other patients. What kind of question is that, anyway?” He laughed, flicking the tip of a needle that seemed to appear from nowhere.

  Alarms went off in my head, but the two burliest interns the institution could dig up were nearby in the small room. Not much more that a strapped-down person could do other than comply.

  “You need to lie still for a moment,” Dr. Benton said, swabbing my forearm.

  “So, where do you go?” I repeated. I saw one of the interns roll his eyes. They wanted the main event, enough of this talky stuff already.

  “I told you,” he paused, the tip of the needle poised to pierce the skin. “I have no idea what you’re asking. Or why, for that matter.”